Jim Morrison's Grave

Finally yesterday I went to this landmark in Paris...Pere Lachaise (a walk away from ESCP-EAP campus) where Jim Morrison is buried. Its a BIG cemetery where greats like Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf are also buried. Honestly, I did not know much about the American singer, poet and writer. It was a looooong walk till his grave, which because the place is huge, is very difficult to locate without a map. So walked walked and walked till I was totally lost and tired when I spotted a young French guy with a map. He had no clue about what I was saying till he heard Jim Morrison's name and suddenly his face lit up and he took me to the place. On the way, he tried to tell me something in French but all I could understand was that he is a huge fan of Jim and had spent some time crying at his grave and hence was very excited to escort me.

What hit me like a rock as I checked the grave was the inscription "Dec 08, 1943 - July 03, 1971". A man who died when he was just 27 years old and is buried in a cemetery with some of the finest names. BUT it is mainly because of him that tourists and youngsters visit the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Such is life...

It seems there is a lot of controversy surrounding his death as his body was not seen by many except for a few officials and no autopsy was performed on it. He had also expressed a desire to fake his death and go to Africa to use a pseudonym as a writer. If he died that day in Paris then some people claim he was murdered and some others claim it was due to a drug-overdose.

One thing beats me...all over the world, many creative people take to drugs. What does it do to them? Fires up their creativity? Gives them a high that nothing else in the world can give? Makes them think better? For their fans, it is their work that gives them a high but maybe what works for the creator or the genius is drugs.

One evening at Tracadero near Eiffel, a group of youngsters were dancing and playing rythm instruments. They were not doing it for money and looked genuinely happy playing the instruments with ease and panache. And the rythms were quite provoking and hence they were engrossed in the music and were dancing oblivious to others around. I was impressed since music was giving them a high and they looked very happy and content with life and the music around. Till I saw 2 of them having dope. Wooosh. So it was not life, not music...it was drugs that was the reason for this state of elation. Disappointed, I walked away to look for people who are on a high without the aid of drinks and drugs...

Jazz Festival in Paris

This week Paris is quietly attending the Jazz Festival at various venues. So I searched on the net for a club and found the China Club. So Rob (a canadian friend, with Italian roots and engineering background like me) and me went to the club after an Indian meal of Mutter-Paneer (gravy dish of peas and cottage cheese) with Rice at my place which he enjoyed! But we were in for a surprise as we got down at a station which was quite far from the Club. However, we decided to walk and what a walk it was...we crossed almost 5-6 metro stations on foot! Finally reached the place which turned out to be wonderful. Extremely elegant and had a good crowd. But the Jazz set was about to end and hence we decided to have something at the Club and discussed alot of issues like world politics, religion and interestingly similarities between Italian and Indian cultures!
Incidentally, Italian society is also patriarchic and women do alot of house-hold work which is a fast changing trend in India as well. Moreover he pointed out how Italian women put on weight after marriage...sounds like India? I will very soon get to eat authentic Italian food cooked by Rob with lots of "oregano"!! One source of authentic Italian food is in the college restaurant where Pizza served is very good (though full of cheese) but its very much unlike the US-Indo pizzas available in Indian outlets. No wonder there are not many Domino's and Pizza Hut outlets here as every other cafe (and there are 60,000 of them in Paris) offers those original pizzas.
I realise the topic of this blog was about the Jazz Festival!
Now that the topic has shifted to food, one more piece of information. I once went to a restaurant near Eiffel in a place called Ecole Militaire...named Hotel Punjab for Indian food. And guess wat, it is owned by a Pakistani and run (operations) by Bangladeshis!

Presentations and Career Fairs

All the major recruiting brands have come to the campus here at ESCP-EAP. Yesterday was a Finance special day with all majors putting up stalls in the campus. The people at the stalls have a tough job...tat of encouraging all the students who come to the stalls to apply online and making everyone feel that he or she is "cut" for the job. The stalls were no doubt informative but realised that most of the students were there for freebies and guess what the goodies were...pendrives, loads of chocolates, pens, stress-busters, bags, etc. 2 weeks back there were loads of presentations by the companies and after each presentation, students were offered snacks and drinks...yes, drinks in the campus. Something unheard of in India. Anyways, a good chance to taste different varieties of cheese...when in France, not to taste the cheese, wine and champagne is a sin.

Watching movies

Can't help buying DVDs when I go to buy some groceries from the Indian-Sri Lankan area in Paris called Gard da Nord. So happened to watch 2 movies recently: Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna and Teesri Manzil.

First about Teesri Manzil...there is a song which I call "A tribute to the Giant Wheel!"...something about it:

I must admit that the precision with which Director Vijay Anand has filmed the movie and the songs is unbelievable. 40 years back, he could achieve what we cannot with digital technology well in place.

Long calculated shots and unusual camera positions...

"Dekhiye saahibon wo koi aur thee..." is completely picturised on the giant wheel and the camera almost takes you to a ride of the wheel...your head may actually spin! There is a particular shot wherein Shammi Kapoor is performing on the ground and the camera is placed on the rotating wheel...for almost 540 degrees of rotation, Shammi performs without going out of the frame, lip syncing without making a mistake.

No wonder, Pancham used to like watching his songs being shot.

After 1942 A Love Story, I cant think of a movie wherein people eagerly waited for songs to come on screen. No wonder, songless movies are in fashion nowadays.

Now lets talk about Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna...well, honestly I liked the movie. It is real and entertaining. Karan Johar is a genius. If you can forget some over-sentimental scenes, hamming by Shahrukh (but he cant help it, NRIs love it), songs and length of some scenes...you may like the rest of the film. Karan Johar always has entertaining scenes in his movies. Things that make it paisa vasool. NO I am NOT talking about special appearances by Kajol or John Abraham or 120 different colors for sarees in the background or 456 balloons on the set or one mandatory sports scene which tries hard with no success to capture the thrill of climax of Lagaan!!

I am talking about the wit in the dialogues, the way words are played around with...the humour which is real...which shows those characters (played by the most expensive actors) actually talking about things that you and me talk about...KKKG had some such scenes with Shahrukh and Hrithik trying to frustrate each other, Kal Ho Na Ho had many such scenes with Rajpal Yadav, Saif, Shahrukh, etc...and of course KANK also has many of them with Amitabh Bachchan as well!

All in all, a good film...or atleast not as bad as everybody seems to be saying. Not that this should be sent to film festivals because that will embarrass people who have watched Closer (2004).

There was one reference of Paris by the way, in the movie...this is to justify this post.

Another reason for writing this is that I am feeling too lazy to get out of bed...its cold outside!

Do post your comments...

Abhishek Bachchan in Paris

Near Eiffel Tower (precisely at Trocadero), there was a small unit shooting, without getting any attention. Seemed to be like a small time television shoot till I noticed some Indian faces and asked some unit members. One stupid unit girl said it was the shooting of an hindi film "Jhoom" and went away. With this I could guess it is Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom (Yash Raj and Shaad Ali's next film). But it struck me that the film has a huge star-cast including both the AB's and my favourite Omar Shareef (Pakistan's legendary comedien). Then I asked another unit girl (named Aarti) and she turned out to be worse (rather silly) and did not tell who all are shooting :) Anyways, as it turned out, the ordinary looking actors were Abhishek Bachchan and poor Lara Dutta (short clothes in chilly weather!).
Interestingly, a sardarji uncle with his family rejected the shoot as that of some South Indian film and was walking away. When I showed him AB, his family screamed and uncle asked who, where, really? :D
We also checked the shoot in Shaad Ali's TV screen and the shot looked awesome. On right-hand corner of the screen were AB and LD and rest of the frame was occupied by Eiffel Tower lit up in the nite. Check out for the scene in Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom...prolly next year's biggest release.